+Source.+--_Chronicon Thomæ Wykes_, pp. 157-159. (_Annales Monastici_,
vol. iv.--Rolls Series.)
But to return to the course of events in England, we must not pass over
in a feigned silence the wickedness or madness of the inhabitants of the
Cinque Ports, and the many hardships which they brought upon the English
people. For they gathered together a large fleet of pirate vessels, with
which they constantly scoured the seas, to prevent by force the bringing
of provisions to England; all those whom they were able to capture on
the seas, natives as well as foreigners, they cruelly slew, and, casting
the bodies into the deep, put to their own use the ships and all they
contained; they became crueller, in their destruction, than the
whirlpool of Scylla or Charybdis, for they despoiled of all their goods
and slew, without respect of persons, the merchants who were accustomed
to bring us stores. Wherefore the supply of foodstuffs, which generally
had been more plentiful in England than in all other regions, so
diminished, that wine, previously sold at forty shillings, easily
fetched ten marks; and wax, which generally did not exceed forty
shillings, was worth eight marks and more; and a pound of pepper,
formerly scarcely worth sixpence, was sold for three shillings. To be
brief, there was such a scarcity of salt, iron, steel, cloth, and all
manner of goods, that the people suffered terribly from want, and even
divers merchants were forced to beg, for the people could not send their
goods out of the kingdom; wherefore, had not Divine Providence come
quickly to succour the country in its misery, the supply of money would
have failed, as well as that of goods. And the Earl--_i.e._, Simon de
Montfort--wishing to soothe the popular ear by foolish fancies,
announced and caused it to be proclaimed abroad that the inhabitants
could easily be provided for out of the produce of the country itself,
without bringing in provisions from abroad--an idea which is clearly
absurd: for, indeed, the interchange of goods between two countries
brings divers benefits to each in turn; nevertheless, some, wishing to
please the Earl, wore garments of white cloth, refusing to put on
coloured ones, lest they should be seeming to seek for necessaries from
abroad.
The lord Henry de Montfort, too, eldest son of the Earl of Leicester, to
fill up the cup of his greed, greatly tarnished his honour as a soldier
by seizing and applying to his own purposes all the wool of the kingdom,
which the merchants, not only of Flanders, but of England and other
parts, had brought down to the harbours to ship each to his own country;
for which dishonourable act, instead of a good soldier, he was known,
for a byword, as "the woolcarder." By these and other distresses the
kingdom of England was so weakened that, wounded by irreparable losses,
it became a most miserable instead of a flourishing country, and, in the
words of the Prophet, we were "a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and
a derision to them that are round about us."